“It was not so clear he was going to survive. I tried to drive to the hospital to find out exactly what his injuries were,” before Alonso said he received more positive news. Now he is recovering well and we hope to see him back very soon in F1.”

“”Mark isn’t approaching this year that (as if) this is his final year. I think we both agreed to keep the contract on a yearly basis at this stage in his career because it’s important for us to see that he’s got the speed, the motivation, the hunger and commitment.”

“Now, though, Mosley is gone, and sources within the FIA indicate his successor Jean Todt is intent on restoring the FIA’s overall control of the rights. The Munich matter, plus CVC’s investigation ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ which is expected to be extremely thorough, given the standing of the commission’s members ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ could well provide Todt with the means of doing just that, possibly in conjunction with Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund […] or the teams’ collective.”

“McLaren’s 2011 solution is to provide a dedicated feed for each of the different cooling requirements. The engines main coolers reside within the sidepod, fed by the ?óÔé¼?ôL?óÔé¼?Ø shaped inlets. These vent partly through the rear of the sidepod and partly through the bulge in the tail of the upper engine cover”

Comment of the day

On one hand i would really like Heidfeld to do well, and shut up all the doubters. Never really been a huge Heidfeld fan but i think he is getting a lot of flak for no reason.

On the other hand, if he does do well, what happens when Kubica is fit to return?

Given the reports we are getting it looks unlikely that he will be better within the first half of the season, surely there is a point of no return if Heidfeld is consistently scoring points or heavens forbid fighting for the championship that they just wouldn’t bring Kubica back.

Is it a possibility he could steal Petrov’s seat if he under-performs? or is that complicated with him being a pay driver?Tomforpresident

@gdog thats not what Icthyes said. He said it would have added another skill requirement.

And in that respect, I agree with him. Not entirely sure if it would produce better racing though, but it would provide a performance differential between cars that use their tyres hard or those that use them less so they last longer.

One of the issues was that Bridgestone couldn’t be bothered to produce a tyre that would be any faster than 8 or 9 seconds off the pace when not pre-warmed. If that had been rectified it might have been a viable proposition. Personally I’d have liked to have seen it, as others have said it would have required an extra skill to handle the tyres properly when cold.

Given the reports we are getting it looks unlikely that he will be better within the first half of the season, surely there is a point of no return if Heidfeld is consistently scoring points or heavens forbid fighting for the championship that they just wouldnâ€™t bring Kubica back.

Is it a possibility he could steal Petrovâ€™s seat if he under-performs? or is that complicated with him being a pay driver?

If Heidfeld were to be a genuine championship contender – though I personally doubt he will – then it is unlikely that Renault would put Kubica back in the car, and they cannot replace Petrov unless Petrov underperforms. They will likely keep Kubica benched and have him resume his physiotherapy than stick him in the car. Unless Kubica is able to come back halway through the season, in which case it is unlikely Heidfeld will be in a position where he can easily win the championship.

Looking back at their conflicts in Sauber gives me the right to predict that this time it wouldn’t be better…

No stock market information, sry ;)

@Feynman
1. Dude, compare Heidfeld and Kubica’s experience in that period and then start posting comments.
2. In 2006 Kubica raced only 6 times, so it’s quite obvious he was outscored by Heitfeld. 2007 was his first full season in F1 and as a rookie he lost only by 3 points to his colleague.

He could take Kubica’s. If the Renault brass get the slightest whiff that RK is even 2% slower than Heidfeld, they’ll throw him out the door without so much as ‘goodbye’.

F1 is a brutal business. Does anybody remember last winter, when Massa was given glowing press, and the Ferrari team waxed poetic about what a part of the family he was and how they were all in it together? Six months on, a hint of weakness, and Ferrari smacked him down to ‘hired help’ status and the press started running career obituaries.

If you’re hurt as a driver, you’re not a threat, and everyone loves you. But once you’re well again? Your manager will throw you under the bus if you’re not commanding lucrative deals, your team will screw you to the wall at the slightest hint of weakness, and the other drivers will start sharpening the knives in preparation for the next silly season.

And how about for 2012 season? maybe if Nick do well (not WDC contender but maybe the occasional podium) he could take Petrovâ€™s race seat, couldnâ€™t he?

Only if Petrov failed to meet the performance criteria. But even if he does, it’s unlikely Heidfeld would join the team – he’s been talking abut spearheading BMW’s 2012 DTM campaign.

And with Kubica being forced out, it’s likely the performance clause in Petrov’s contract will default to a statement that says he must score a certain amount of points to retain the seat, not that he must score a certain percentage of his team-mate’s points.

Yea you have to remember that brawn used the new regulations to their advantage by developing their car years before to throw the big teams off balance, the reg changes this year are tiny compared to 2008-2009.

Well I remember during the 2009 I was thinking “if Webber doesn’t win the title this year he never will”, only for him to lead the championship most of last season. Considering Red Bull should be fast again this year, Webber should be a title contender again.

I think the average difference between the two was about half a tenth or about 5 hundredths….

Shouldn’t matter too mucyh anyway this year as with the wing if you’re behind (like Webber in Mayalsia after taking pole then having a bad astart or say in Spa), then you can just use the wing to pass.

I had no idea he was disabled, so it appears I’m both unfunny and a prat. (news to nobody, I’m sure.)

The beeb report that he has Cerebral Palsy – that’s going to be some challenge to overcome to go racing. Zanardi has certainly shown what can be done with building a car for the disabled but I live with someone who has CP and I’m at a loss how this is going to go. Good luck to him anyway.

“Now, though, Mosley is gone, and sources within the FIA indicate his successor Jean Todt is intent on restoring the FIAâ€™s overall control of the rights. The Munich matter, plus CVCâ€™s investigation â€“ which is expected to be extremely thorough, given the standing of the commissionâ€™s members â€“ could well provide Todt with the means of doing just that, possibly in conjunction with Abu Dhabiâ€™s sovereign wealth fund […] or the teamsâ€™ collective”

This, this could be a turn up for the books!

So far, F1 is charing ever greater sanctioning fees, to allow CVC to recoup its investment, and whilst it is driving F1 into new markets – only a good thing – the fact is that its pricing iteslf out of its identity. If Todt can wrest back the rights to F1, it could mean an end to ridiculous yearly fee hikes, and high ticket prices.

From F1 to world governments, I believe we are seeing some weeding going on. Without true revolution however, I do not see anything changing dramatically. When people wrest power from the over-powering themselves, then real change may occur.

I still expect that Spa and Melbourne are not on the calendar within a year or two. The saddest part of our indifference!

I am afraid you might well be right about that.
Only thing we can hope for, is the circuits replacing them are at least pretty good.
Real shame about Spa especially, but not much we can do apart from hoping for a change in attetude towards these tracks.

Well, one way would be to start a publicised boycott of a the oil-money venues by simply not watching the races held there and getting many, many, many people everywhere to do the same a couple of years in a row and making sure F1 knows about it. Easier said than done, of course.

Whether i watch the race or not it will make no difference because no one knows if i watched it. So all we have to do is convince the selected few that have those little TV viewing machines under their TV set to go and watch those races in a friends house or a pub.
Surely that’s not too much of a sacrifice.

You were great on TFL. Seemed like you’ve been doing it for years and years. How does it feel to be a celebrity? Good to see you chumming with Peter and Neale.
Now, find out where the dad-gum exhaust is. You said your photographer took some “cracking good” pictures. No. Your photographer needs to take his digital camera off “automatic” and purposely overexpose some closeup pics of the lower rear of the McLaren so you can really see what’s going on. They’re using flat black paint which won’t show up on properly exposed pics.

I don’t know what the problem has been, but in a year when everyone is hunting exhausts, double floors and diffuser channels … all we ever see are point and shoot, mid-exposed, auto-matrix metered shots.

Someone throw us all a bone, we’re gasping over here. Stick it on spot-metering, expose for the deep shadows, blow-out the rest of the frame, and let us begin to see what’s what without having to pointlessly grub about in the sensor noise-floor and JPEG artifacts from brightened and gamma’d web-shots.

You can publish a game in beta state, take money for it and get BAFTA nomination – somethings wrong here…
(I know Codemasters can do good or even great games, but it takes them two attempts lately – vide Dirt and Dirt 2, it looks like they may do proper F1 game with F1 2011).

Frankly I’m stunned that a game so full of bugs, not using official timing, not having an in-game save option, taking a huge step backwards from previous games in the series, and still in all honesty not repaired to a decent standard, can get a BAFTA nomination.

Regarding F1 2010, are you talking about the PC version or a specific console version?

On PS3 the only real problems I encounter are 1. I lose about 10 places in a pit-stop scenario even when I come in ahead of the pack, and. 2. Twice now I’ve accidentally signed a contract with the wrong team and there is no option to go back… it would be nice if they asked, as PS3 does, “are you sure… you just signed up to driver for Virgin again; do you hate yourself?”

The game is much better than I expected from Codemasters. The tracks are much more accurate compared to Championship Edition and the tires really do fall off as you lap. There are areas that I would change, but its physics seem much better than the goofy Gran Turismo line.

One last thing I would like to share: Wouldn’t it be nice if they could send Online Content packages that would simply update livery to the cars for 2011 for a reasonable price? Say $10USD or so. I only say this because it gets annoying to see an F1 game released only every 5 years or so and being stuck driving against retired drivers or non-existent teams. Downloadable updates seem to be the future and I would like to get more support for the petition on the correct forums.